As to the rest, I am not swayed by any passion, either of love or hatred, towards the great, nor has my will captivated either by particular injury or obligation.  I look upon our kings with an affection simply loyal and respectful, neither prompted nor restrained by any private interest, and I love myself for it.  Nor does the general and just cause attract me otherwise than with moderation, and without heat.  I am not subject to those penetrating and close compacts and engagements.  Anger and hatred are beyond the duty of justice; and are passions only useful to those who do not keep themselves strictly to their duty by simple reason: 

          “Utatur motu animi, qui uti ratione non potest.”

     ["He may employ his passion, who can make no use of his reason.” 
     —­Cicero, Tusc.  Quaes., iv. 25.]

All legitimate intentions are temperate and equable of themselves; if otherwise, they degenerate into seditious and unlawful.  This is it which makes me walk everywhere with my head erect, my face and my heart open.  In truth, and I am not afraid to confess it, I should easily, in case of need, hold up one candle to St. Michael and another to his dragon, like the old woman; I will follow the right side even to the fire, but exclusively, if I can.  Let Montaigne be overwhelmed in the public ruin if need be; but if there be no need, I should think myself obliged to fortune to save me, and I will make use of all the length of line my duty allows for his preservation.  Was it not Atticus who, being of the just but losing side, preserved himself by his moderation in that universal shipwreck of the world, amongst so many mutations and diversities?  For private man, as he was, it is more easy; and in such kind of work, I think a man may justly not be ambitious to offer and insinuate himself.  For a man, indeed, to be wavering and irresolute, to keep his affection unmoved and without inclination in the troubles of his country and public divisions, I neither think it handsome nor honest: 

          “Ea non media, sed nulla via est, velut eventum
          exspectantium, quo fortunae consilia sua applicent.”

     ["That is not a middle way, but no way, to await events, by which
     they refer their resolutions to fortune.”—­Livy, xxxii. 21.]

This may be allowed in our neighbours’ affairs; and thus Gelo, the tyrant of Syracuse, suspended his inclination in the war betwixt the Greeks and barbarians, keeping a resident ambassador with presents at Delphos, to watch and see which way fortune would incline, and then take fit occasion to fall in with the victors.  It would be a kind of treason to proceed after this manner in our own domestic affairs, wherein a man must of necessity be of the one side or the other; though for a man who has no office or express command to call him out, to sit still I hold it more excusable (and yet I do not excuse myself upon these terms) than in foreign expeditions, to which, however, according to our laws, no man is pressed against his will.  And yet even those who wholly engage themselves in such a war may behave themselves with such temper and moderation, that the storm may fly over their heads without doing them any harm.  Had we not reason to hope such an issue in the person of the late Bishop of Orleans, the Sieur de Morvilliers?